The iPhone 4 and iPad we know today are gadgetry in the extreme—digital pieces of paper, if you will. Nothing garish, nothing in excess. And that's mostly true in their prototypes! But some of these leaked early iPhone and iPad prototypes? They're bonkers.

One early iPhone 4 prototype shows edges and angles galore, with diagonal corners, and one of the iPad prototypes even has a kickstand. Yes. A kickstand. You've got to see these.

The pictures of these iPhone and iPad prototypes were found in court documents by BuzzFeed and the Verge. Not all the prototypes were strange though. Some prototypes actually look like they'd be real products.

Advertisement

Above, there's an iPod Nano-inspired iPhone 4 prototype made with brushed aluminum and complete with rounded corners. Another iPhone prototype labeled n90 actually looks amazing—impossibly thin (though thicker in the middle) and skinny, it looks very much like a delightful candybar. Other prototypes look like knockoffs of Apple products you'd see other companies make—inelegant designs that feel forced to be quasi-futuristic.

The most fun prototypes, however, are the ones you'd never think Apple would even consider making. The iPhone with the diagonal corner looks like a Vertu phone with its eight different sides (including corners). The kickstand iPad? That had to have been a joke to rankle Steve Jobs, right? Right?

Advertisement

Look at these, then look at the devices you have in your pocket or on your desk, then think about how close you came to owning some pretty absurd hardware. [BuzzFeed, The Verge]